Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage Day 3

Here are my notes from Day 3 and pictures can be found HERE:

Our morning session was Forest Foods and Pharmacy led by Darryl Patton. This was an awesome session and I would definitely do this again! I have lots of notes that he talked about but I do not recommend this to anyone or encourage anyone to try these. I may do some more research on this before I even try some of this but I found the information interesting.

1. To make tinctures use 80 proof vodka.

2. Broadleaf Plantain (ribwort) – mild tasting like spinach,eat in a salad or cook like spinach. Can be used on brown recluse spider bites; abcess teeth, crushed leaves on bee stings; cilium seeds like Metamucil; blend, strain, and drink juice

3. Wild Lettuce – makes you sleepy, kind of a non narcotic opium; soak in alcohol, squeeze out and add more, then boild and dry out, take as a sedative or pain reliever; young leaves in salad; latex takes off warts, moles, skin cancer (like milk from fig tree)

4. Sassafras – calming, relaxing; helps hunger pains, used in tea as blood purifier, jaundice, hepatitis, helps live, antiviral, can make you sweat; used to make hair shiny and grow, keeps mice out.

5. Bay leaf- gets rid of roaches

6. Poison Ivy – dry 3 small leaves and eat once a day for 2 weeks to build up an immunity

7. Joe Pye Weed – like boneset; roots are antiviral, can make you sweat; tea

8. Tulip poplar – old time bitter tonic, stimulates liver, anti-inflammatory; builds appetite, makes you lose weight, use bark, pods

9. White pine – syrup; cough medicine, expectorant, soothing effect, bronchitis, congestion, resin seals it and heals it, boil needles for vitamin C

10. Greenbriar – raw or steamed with butter and salt; root is good too; steroid precursor, builds muscle in men, hormonal for women; anti-inflammatory, good for arthritis, good for IBS; suck on berries for hoarse throat; use like stuffed grape leaves

11. Lichen – (ooznia); antiviral, antibacterial; medicated salve for 3^rd degree burns; fights MRSA and brown recluse spider bites; boil tea or use as tincture

12. Cracked capped polipor – shelf fungus on locust; anticancer properties, antiviral, antibacterial, fights uterine cancer, boil and drink tea

13. Violets – cook like spinach or raw in salads, more vitamin C than oranges; has rutin which strengthens veins and capillaries, chew on it can cure heartburn, builds body to fight cancer

14. Prickly Ash – shrub in the ginseng family,circulates hormones (helps lymph nodes); take bark and put on sore tooth; make tea

15. Yucca – use for cordage; root for anti-inflammatory; arthritis, eat flowers; leaves and root for antiseptic for hair and soap, stalk for handdrill to make fire

16. Heal all – for herpes, shingles, chicken pox; inhibits virus from reproducing; flu; respiratory illness; use in tincture (For tinctures- mix pint jar full of plant, add 80 proof vodka, stick on dark shelf; take 15-20 drops (1/2 tsp) 3-5 times a day)

17. Homemade Airborne – Japanese honeysuckle and forsythia blossoms; make tincture

18. Winter huckleberry – diabetes and blood pressure

19. To make salves, use lard

20. Crossvine – works on adrenal; better than ginseng (make tea using leaves or vine or flowers); under leaf is purple and in the winter (solid purple)

21. St. Johns Wort – flowers for mild/moderate depression; soak in olive oil and is great salve for wounds

22. Wild Yarrow – crush and chew and put on bee stings, insect bites or bleeding; put in tincture

23. Wild geranium – acts like alum for diarrhea, dysentery but too much can cause constipation, astringent, internal bleeding, heartburn

24. Squawroot – eat raw, dry and pull off so tannic acid stops bleeding

25. Partridgeberry – helps labor, post partum bleeding, use as tincture

26. Cinquefoil – poor man’s golden seal; astringent, mild antibiotic, mouth ulcers, canker sores, internal bleeding; tea

27. Low thyroid – kelp or bladderwrack

28. Lupus – pokeroot

29. Blackberry Root – dysentery but can make you constipated; make tea, blackberry juice or jelly (jam is a scouring laxative); natural antihistamine

30. Hayfever = fenugreek seeds in powder, thyme, goldenseal, benzenite clay powder. 50/50 fenugreek seed and thyme plus pinch of goldenseal, large pinch of clay (1/4 tsp), mix and put in capsules. Take 2a day or put in applesauce

31. Lyre leaf sage – for nears, heat poultice and put on skin cancer

32. Nine bark hydrangea – root is anti-inflammatory, liver, gall bladder, called stone breaker herb

33. Virginia creeper – make tea for poison ivy in the spring when green

34. Tag Alder – good for hives in children dry green pine cones and burn, use ashes to stop bleeding

35. Sweet shrub is an aphrodisiac

36. Solomon’s seal –bruises, strains, ligaments and tendons; tea

37. Dogwoods – fight malaria dn yellow fever

38. Heuchera – roots are astringent

39. Foamflower – cleansing kidney medicine

40. Dwarf Irises – liver medicine, laxative

41. Pussytoes – poor man’s rabbit tobacco

42. Blood root – cancer, cough,

43. Yellow Dock – natural iron, leaves canbe cooked with fat back, liver herb, blood purifier, salve for skin cancer and wounds that won’t heal

44. Elderberry – flowers (hot tea makes you sweat and cold tea makes you pee), takes off age spots and freckles; antiviral, juice out of fruit is antiviral; gastric purgative, ointments, hard wood for hand drill

45. Jewelweed – for stinging nettles

46. Mullein – poultice heals wounds, inner leaves in tea make you sleep, outer leaves in tea cause nightmares, flowers in tincture for pain relief

47. Dutch white clover – anti cancer

Searching for Salamanders took up the afternoon. This was fun for all ages. I found out there were woodland salamanders and salamanders in the water. We found spotted dusky salamanders, Blue ridge two lined, Oconoluftee, Redbacks, American toad, ring neck snake, blue bellies (seels), Santeetlah.

Come back tomorrow for Day 4.

Posted on the Successful Teaching Blog by loonyhiker (successfulteaching at gmail dot com).

Original photo by Pat Hensley